There was an interesting letter in the Chronicle yesterday about education. I always find these interesting. The letter writer didn't identify himself as a teacher, but if he was he has awfully unrealistic expectations. He wanted five year contracts and one computer for every two students. He wanted tutoring programs for students that fail and behavioral programs for students that disrupt the classroom. I simply love unbridled idealism.
A lot of people are concerned about teacher quality from a lot of different angles without realizing it is all the same angle. Some complain because it takes too long to get rid of a bad teacher. Others complain because there just aren't enough qualified teachers out there. Folks, it's the exact same problem. When you have a shortage of qualified teachers, it is going to be harder to get rid of bad teachers. Mind you, I believe there are fewer bad teachers than people believe. Still, nothing increases quality like competition. This is where we get into the age old debate on how we recruit teachers.
The answer that comes from outside the industry is ironic. They want to throw money at us. Hey, I'm not one to turn down a higher paycheck, but I think those folks are missing the point. Those that went into education went in knowing they weren't going to break the bank. However, most places pay even beginning teachers a comfortable wage. I've never had any specific beef with the amount of money I have been paid. More than half the teachers that enter the classroom leave before they make it to their fifth year. I guarantee you that most get out for reasons other than money.
For us to improve education we need to have more serious exit interviews to find out why that is happening. From the inside, I can harbor a guess. I think the first problem stems from the fact that teachers' authority has eroded over the years from all sides. You have micromaning administrators that dictate everything you do. You have parents that believe their children over the teacher. You have other administrators that undermine your authority when you have discipline issues, and finally you have the state dictating more and more what you are supposed to teach.
However, I think that is problem number one. Number two would be the actual level of discipline in the classroom. Our tasks as teachers move closer and closer to the realm of the baby sitter and away from the task of educator. An increasing number of parents are relieving themselves of the responsibilities of parenting and putting that on the schools. My own mother told me that when she started teaching that maybe one or two out of twenty-five kids would be successfully labeled as ADHD. That number grew to five or six by the time she retired, and I can only imagine it being worse in some areas and over the intervening ten years.
Most teachers went into teaching wanting to help kids learn. They didn't go in wanting to police students or fill out mountains of paperwork. There are those that manage both tasks very well and still manage to inspire their students. Still, you see Robin Williams reciting poetry in that movie, try to imagine two or three students out of their seats and disrupting others. Picture two or three more typing away on their cellphone. Imagine one or two asleep or passing notes and you will get an accurate picture of the 21st century classroom.
I don't know that the teacher shortage is so much about not enough people coming in as it is about too many people going out. I also don't think there is as big a problem of bad teachers as people think. If you can't control your classroom you are miserable. I know, I've been there. I had to learn and sometimes it's still a struggle. If you are miserable you are going to find something else to do. So, I don't know about one computer for every two children or five year contracts, but education still needs to do something about those that disrupt the class. Amazing how it always comes full circle to the idea of trade curriculums. One thing is for sure, teachers don't quit or stay because of the money. Give us more money, but give us a more peaceful environment first.
what carguy said.
Also, I'm a big fan of summary execution of the disciplinary problem kids *and* their families.
We need:
1. More parent involvement
2. More support for teachers from admin and parents
3. More discipline in the classroom. (When I was in school the paddling from the teacher was the least of my worries. It was when I got home that worried me.)
4. Let teachers teach.
5. Implement the "Scott and Carguy" plan from last week.
That should do it.
i turned away from teaching because like many, i disagree with "teach the test" as a teacher's priority and fundamental imperative. while i believe rewarding performance is a vital recruiting and retention tool, i also feel standardized tests as the primary metric for teacher compensation fails to achieve the ultimate goal of student performance or teaching success. pay & bonus incentives can lead to undermined teacher morale when applied arbitrarily or while not taking into account both short AND long term educational student outcomes. and these outcomes impact community, ultimately societal outcomes, which should be a wake up call but has been largely ignored by citizens, lawmakers and media. a level playing field for teachers campus-wide, much less district-wide can be unattainable and/or unsustainable depending on the many variables of circumstance facing today's teachers and students. you address my views about the erosion of teacher autonomy, over-reaching administrative control which i attribute to ever increasing insecurity (driven by the fear of becoming obsolete) and parental attitudes ranging from absent to obsessed - and everything in between. but discipline primarily is the problem, especially taking into consideration classroom size and the undeniable fact that "special needs" student numbers are rising while solutions are shrinking. this fact is unnecessarily compromised by the reduction and in some cases elimination of paraprofessionals, once a vital component of the field and complement to the teaching profession. as you are aware i am increasingly cynical about education, particularly in texas where our governor "appoints" panels that feel free to remove thurgood marshall or anyone deemed not acceptable to the ideology or current political inclination. you ran out of time (or energy) to discuss textbook conglomerates and other special interest groups who often with administrators, have the potential to hijack your classroom with specific agendas. or failed state compliance with "robin hood" public education tax equalization that perpetuates those two computers in one district's campus classroom and throws apple notebooks at another. it's so thrilling to watch nasa's possible launch today of their new billion dollar missile, so wonderful that the bill & melinda gates foundation spearhead an initiative to ensure laptops to students in foreign countries. and i marvel at today's chron story about a UT football coach with a 3.1 million salary, while lee high school sits in the shadow of the transco tower and the galleria, and my son's basketball team plays with torn old jerseys handed out with numbers taped on the back.
and i agree with SSTMelon that portals are a crock for teachers and parents. also occurred to me that removing students from the communication loop altogether also removes them from the responsibility loop. twitter will no doubt soon replace portals, even preachers are having "twitter worship" services. side note and sad point, overwhelming majority of lee high school student households have no cable or internet access so portals not a worry for me.
Nice post. Discipline will always be an issue - and, I'd bet, always has. It's the paperwork and bureaucracy that really worries me. Fort Bend, for example, just rolled out this "Parent Portal" thing, where you're supposed to be able to communicate with your teachers daily and get daily progress reports and the like if you want. But if the teacher's teaching for seven hours a day, and has to make up lesson plans and attend meetings and the like, when the hell will s/he have the time to give meaningful daily updates to each and every parent of their students? And that's hardly the only paperwork in the system - that just scratches the surface, from what I understand. I'd be willing to bet that virtually none of this paperwork does a thing to help educate our kids. With all this emphasis on form and procedure, where is the substance going?